In 2022, Northern Bliss adopted a fauna relocation program. We love animals, but our love is not without boundaries. We cannot accept so many fauna on our one acre that it threatens our bliss.
During the first summer at our northern paradise, we relished all that nature had to offer. At dusk, we loved to sit side-by-side on the wrought-iron glider-bench at the top tier of our flower garden, observing the woods across South White Ash Lane. We looked forward to spotting deer in the thick underbrush. How cool was that?
The previous owner had planted a row of variegated hostas to edge the garden. I liked the effect. But as spring grew into summer, the hostas became increasingly ragged, mere husks of their former selves. Ugly bites had been taken out of the bands of white outlining their shape. “Deer,” Dale, our gardener, said. “You need to buy Liquid Fence from Menards. That’s the big box home-and-garden supply store on Highway 8. Spraying the solution around the perimeter of your property will act as a barrier-to-entry to keep the deer away from your hostas…and the rest of your garden.”
Yep. That solution worked─for a week or two. Then the deer were back. Ret, my sister from Texas, was visiting at the time. We drove back to Menards where we were greeted by a gaunt, gnarled man with a ragged horseshoe mustache and the longest white beard I’d seen since Santa. “How can I help you girls?” he grinned despite missing eyeteeth.
“The deer are eating our hostas,” Ret blurted.
We followed him as he shuffled along for about five rows; he stopped abruptly in front of Sports and Ammo and pointed. “Then you’d be needing some 22 shells.”
I threw my arms up in protest. “We don’t want to kill them!”
“O-oh,” he feigned surprise, his eyes twinkling. He led us to the deer repellent section where we selected an alternative.
Repelling Deer. Throughout the years, as our gardens expanded into a tempting salad buffet, we tried many products. Milorganite, an organic human waste fertilizer sold by the Milwaukee sewer department, worked for a time. But our deer became accustomed to the scent of humans. Fawns were the most curious. They sampled each new plant I brought back from the nursery. One day Gunter and I were relaxing on our pontoon at the dock enjoying a stunning peach-and-violet sunset. “There’s a fawn on the lake bank approaching your hostas,” Gunter warned.
She was merely eating grass, but inching toward the hosta lining the hillside near our house. How brazen! I decided to teach her a lesson. I moved silently to the bench on the dock. She kept on eating. I crept slowly up the bank. She looked up, stared at me, and kept on nibbling—this time on my prized lime-colored hosta. I inched closer while she watched. “Scat!” I yelled. She ran for a few yards and then turned to stare at me. “Scat!” I yelled again, louder this time and running after her. She finally retreated across the road and into the woods. This one is not going to learn.
Gunter laughed when I returned to the pontoon, red-faced and sweaty. “You need to share some of your bounty.”
“Okay. I’ll tithe. Ten percent. That’s it.”
Every other year, we spend the Christmas holidays at Northern Bliss. Our grandchildren loved to see wildlife up close, so Mike brought a bag of corn and spread it on the snow outside the sunroom’s sliding glass door. After three days, the group of does returned with a big buck. He would have his fill first, and then the does stayed on for a while afterwards. A few days later, Mike sprinkled a trail of corn leading to the sunroom door. Before long, we were watching the antics of six does for our evening’s entertainment. The big buck would have no part of that. He continued to leave early.
“Now they will know just where to come back this spring,” I warned. Obviously, no one else was concerned.
By now, our tenth summer here, I’ve reached an uneasy truce with “our” deer. After every rain, I sprinkle Shake Away (coyote urine granules) on all the plants they like. Continued application does keep my “tithe” at an acceptable 10-15%. I’ve also added so-called “deer resistant” plants. Deer tend to avoid the onion family, which includes chives and allium. They don’t like yarrows, lilies, zinnias, geraniums, dusty miller, ferns and daylilies (except for the buds). The problem: deer don’t necessarily follow the rules set out in the gardening magazines. And some fawns haven’t been taught properly and go off on their own—exploring and experimenting. One year a curious fawn sampled almost everything—including the buds of an entire season of tiger lilies!
I try to follow a design rule for container planting using the thriller, filler, and spiller technique; for example, for our pillar pots, I use a spike for the center thriller and three geraniums for the filler. But the typical spillers—dicondria, vinca vine, and sweet potato vine—are attacked by most fauna and disappear by midsummer.
Relocating Rabbits. The bane of my existence this year is the exploding rabbit population in Polk County. All up and down White Ash Lane, property owners are complaining. Since May, we’ve seen three generations of rabbits, the youngest, about seven inches long. Even though rabbits in the wild have a short lifespan, they can raise six litters each year! They can conceive when they’re three months old, and conceive again within 24 hours of giving birth. Gestation is one month. This is where the phrase “multiply like rabbits” comes from.
I make the rounds of our property morning and evening, clapping my hands and yelling “Scat!” They disappear into the woods or to the adjoining properties. I know they’ll be back. During my rounds, I check out the damage: fresh sprouts of hosta eaten from underneath their huge canopies, lily leaves torn from the lower stems to the highest they can reach, pansies and cosmos demolished. I’ve tried Liquid Fence, Shake Away, Deer & Rabbit Repellent to no avail. Fine Gardening contains ads for Plant Skydd and it’s recommended by my nursery. “Safe for people, plants, and pets” the label says. It features a picture of a bunny sniffing a red bloom. I should have known. That’s a clue that they are doing more than “smelling the roses;” they love this stuff! My last purchase was I Must Garden repellant. It stinks of rotten egg yolks, which rodents dislike. They do stay away, but it takes constant application. Do not apply before company arrives.
Relocating groundhogs and raccoons. Groundhogs, (aka whistle pigs, ground pigs, woodchucks, thickwood badger, Canada marmot, monax, weenusk, and land beaver) have also entered Northern Bliss territory. With their thick claws, they dig two burrows 2-5 feet deep, each with backdoors. One burrow is where they hibernate; the other is where they stay during the summer. These furry creatures are known for their special greeting called an Eskimo Kiss. One groundhog will walk up to another and touch its nose to another groundhog’s nose.
But that’s not how I was greeted when I first encountered one last summer! I was in the middle of a garden tour for my friend Judy. We were walking two abreast down the narrow sidewalk between the astilbe and the garage. Suddenly Mr. Groundhog scurried toward us down the same sidewalk as if he owned it. He hissed like a steam engine and bared his teeth before he sulked away. This year, we’ve seen Mr. and Mrs. Groundhog taking their dawn and dusk foraging walks on the lake path, enjoying their salads at my expense. My grandson tracked them to their dugout underneath the neighbor’s porch.
“All these pesky rodents have gotta go,” I vowed.
The final straw occurred when I opened the sliding glass door to see a second-gen rabbit on the porch step leisurely nibbling a sweet potato vine trailing from a pot. A third-gen baby scurried away. I interrupted Gunter’s morning reading of The Wall St. Journal. “This is it! Our territory is being invaded. We have to do something,”
He looked up from his paper. “So what do you plan to do?” (In our household, squirrels-at-the- bird-feeder are his problem; pests-in-the-garden are mine.)
“Well, I can’t poison them, because that would harm other animals. But here’s what the Wisconsin DNR says:
Trapping and hunting for Eastern cottontail and snowshoe hare is legal year-round on your own property. However, many municipalities in Wisconsin have specific regulations regarding the discharge of firearms. Please check with your local government to ensure adherence to local ordinances. Jackrabbits are a protected species.
“So we could trap and deport.”
“To where?” he asked.
“Far enough that they can’t find their way back. I’m thinking across the Apple River and east to the Fox or those swamps near there. What kind of traps do you think I should use?”
Gunter’s nose was back in his paper. “Call Mike.” (That’s his standard answer for everything he doesn’t know how to do.)
“I’ve got a big trap that would work for the groundhogs,” Mike answered. “I’ll bring it over next time.”
“Meanwhile, I’ll buy a smaller rabbit trap at Menards,” I replied.
I interrupted Gunter again. “I feel better now that we have a solution. I’m calling it the Northern Bliss Fauna Relocation Assistance Program. NB FRAP for short.”
“Really?” He raised one eyebrow to make me laugh. “You’re crazy.”
I experimented with loading the cages. First, I placed the small cage on my potting table and placed a layer of lettuce scraps at the back. I added left-over mini-carrots (the kind that every hostess puts on the buffet table but no one ever eats) dipped into a jar of Rabbit Magic I’d purchased on the internet. Then I put the cage in the rhubarb patch, underneath the spreading leaves. To entice them into the cage, I placed a sacrificial carrot dipped in Rabbit Magic at the entrance.
Voilà! My system worked! But instead of a rabbit, I’d caught the smaller rodent I’d dubbed Mrs. Groundhog. She was packed in there so tight she couldn’t move a muscle.
“Aha!” Gunter grinned as he loaded the cage with the docile rodent into the back of our Equinox SUV. “I think I’ll teach this one to swim. We’ll dump her on the banks of that swamp.”
I’d read that groundhogs can climb trees and that they also know how to swim. But this one scrambled right up the bank. She wanted no part of that water!
And so our relocation program began. So far, we’ve trapped and relocated five rabbits, two groundhogs, and a raccoon. Most were docile in their cages. We covered them with a tarp until relocation time, and they didn’t bother to move until we let them loose. Rocky was an exception. This raccoon hated being in prison. He fought so hard, he bent (but failed to break) Mike’s large-animal cage. We asked our lawnmower crew (who, fortunately happened to be there at the time) to take him away in their truck, and return the trap.
I expect that the Northern Bliss Fauna Relocation Program will continue all summer. A neighbor’s rabbit just birthed a new litter by their tree stump. She hops through the spruce to her home on “the other side” as soon as I clap my hands. But this one thing I know: she’ll be back.
About the Author: Lois and Günter Hofmann lived their dream by having a 43-foot ocean-going catamaran built for them in the south of France and sailing around the world. Learn more about their travel adventures by reading Lois’s award-winning nautical adventure trilogy. Read more about Lois and her adventures at her website and stay in touch with Lois by liking her Facebook page. Lois’s books can be purchased from PIP Productions on Amazon and on her website.
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